Asset Management Plan Story Maps – Innovative Consulting with the Community

One of our team members attended the Stormwater 2019 Conference in Auckland, where Damian Young from Morphum Environmental presented a ‘paper’ on Using Data-Rich, Interactive and accessible tools to support catchment Planning.

As part of this paper, Damian demonstrated an example of a STORY MAP which has been created for Tasman District Council to help support public consultation on their Draft Richmond Catchment Management Plan.

To see the Story Book, click here ⇒ Richmond Catchment Management Plan – DRAFT

What makes this a cool innovative way of consulting are the following:

• Lots of information presented in an easy simplified way
• Use of interactive graphics
• Not too ‘wordy’
• It is easier to see the whole picture in a simplified format
• Its not a large written technical Report
• Easier to keep it up to date as new data is available

I love the format; as you scroll through the written information, the visual graphics/information changes.  You can also look at the different sections (tabs across the top See Figure 2 below)

If you want to drill down to the details, then you can easily do this by using the Tabs and then scrolling down for more detail.

The best thing is, the text greys out as you move from one topic to the next and the graphic changes seamlessly. 

The Maps are also fully interactive and you are able to drill down for details

This is a very clever use of technology (in this case, using the ArcGIS app). It’s great when people ‘think outside of the box.’

Well done Tasman DC and Morphum Environmental for coming up with the latest innovative way to support public consultation.

I’m sure there will be many different applications where Asset Management Plan Story Maps could be used – Go check it out, you won’t be disappointed.